Tarrant County Does Not Have a Standing Order

I have filed Divorce Petitions in Collin, Dallas and Denton counties. Today, I am meeting up with a client in Fort Worth to file a Divorce Petition and as I was readying the needed papers, I noticed that Tarrant County does not have standing orders. I checked the Tarrant County clerk's website for a link and even called the Tarrant County Law Library's office and had it confirmed that Tarrant County does not have standing orders must accompany a Divorce Petition. 
The Texas Family Code provides that restraining orders can be requested and served on parties at the beginning of a divorce. To those without a law background, the language present in the standing orders may seem harsh and even accusatory. However, the courts place little significance is attached to it and in most cases the standing orders are more like boilerplate language in an ordinary contract.
In Tarrant County, a party who files for a divorce, may request a "Temporary Restraining Order" (TRO) and an order setting hearing.  This action is needed in Tarrant County because the courts there do not have an immediate "standing order", however,  judges routinely grant TROs and then make them mutual at the first hearing date.
Sometimes parties served with a TRO are worried that they have been accused of a wide range of bad acts. A TRO is just an example of a fairly common approach in the law that warns parties of potential bad behavior, without accusing parties of committing bad behavior. TROs are routine and courts don't put any significance on them as far as proof, or even accusations, of past acts.

How to calculate net income to figure out child support payments?

In Texas, there is a chart/formula created by the Texas Attorney General’s Office (AG) that allows spouses to figure out their "net income." The Texas Attorney General's Office calls the net income chart a "tax chart." 
First, to properly calculate child support you need to come to a yearly gross figure. You can find a gross income from your W-2 form, a year-end paystub, or a calculation based upon your year to date on your paystub. 
Second, that figure will be divided by twelve ("12"), giving you a gross monthly income. 
Third, that figure will then be plugged into the tax table found at: http://www.oag.state.tx.us/cs/attorneys/attorneys_other_tax.shtml. 
Instructions are provided in the link to each years tax chart. 

Can I claim my child's education expenses even though I did not pay my child's tuition?

Question: Can I claim my child's education expenses even though I did not pay my child's tuition?

Answer: If you can claim your child as a dependent and no one else can claim the education expenses, then yes, you may deduct the amount of your child's tuition from your gross income. This is a short answer and is not intended to be legal advice. I received this question via e-mail and researched this particular situation by looking up the rule in the Tax Code. I thought that I would share what I found on my blog. For more information on tax problems and solutions, please visit www.tonyfamlaw.com.

What are Fringe Benefits?

Section 119 of the Internal Revenue Code offers a series of exclusions, where employers can offer fringe benefits to their employees without incurring increased tax liabilities. If employee benefits are not formulated correctly, both employers and employees may incur increased tax liabilities because income was not reported. Sections 119 and 132 offer employers a way to provide fringe benefits without having the value of these benefits count as income for their employees, the following is a short list of exclusions:  meals provided on the job to employees, employee discounts, reimbursement of employee moving expenses and even qualified retirement planning services.
However, employers should use caution when offering employees payments in cash because as the Supreme Court in Commissioner v. Kowalski, 434 U.S. 77 (1977) found, §119 does not include cash payments of any kind. Kowalski was decided before the tax code was revised in 1986 and the current code allows employers a way to offer cash payments to their employees under §125. Section 125 of the Internal Revenue Code allows employers the option of setting up a "Cafeteria Plan." A "Cafeteria Plan" offers employees the option of choosing between receiving fringe benefits or cash and the cash received by the employees would not be counted as income. All of this depends on strict adherence to the requirements of §125. For more information about fringe benefits or other tax issues, please visit www.tonyfamlaw.com or call (214) 872-6406.

Amount of Spousal Support

In Texas, a court may not order spousal support that requires one spouse to pay monthly more than the lesser of $2,500 or 20% of the spouse's average monthly gross income. 

Spousal Support Factors

In Texas, a court determines that a spouse is eligible to spousal support based on the following factors:

  (1) the financial resources of the spouse seeking maintenance;

  (2) the education and employment skills of the spouses, the time necessary to
  acquire sufficient education or training to enable the spouse seeking
  maintenance to find appropriate employment, the availability of that education
  or training, and the feasibility of that education or training;

  (3) the duration of the marriage;

  (4) the age, employment history, earning ability, and physical and emotional
  condition of the spouse seeking maintenance;

  (5) the ability of the spouse from whom maintenance is requested to meet that
  spouse's personal needs and to provide periodic child support payments, if
  applicable, while meeting the personal needs of the spouse seeking maintenance;

  (6) acts by either spouse resulting in excessive or abnormal expenditures or
  destruction, concealment, or fraudulent disposition of community property,
  joint tenancy, or other property held in common;

  (7) the comparative financial resources of the spouses, including medical,
  retirement, insurance, or other benefits, and the separate property of each
  spouse;

  (8) the contribution by one spouse to the education, training, or increased
  earning power of the other spouse;

  (9) the property brought to the marriage by either spouse;

  (10) the contribution of a spouse as homemaker;

  (11) marital misconduct of the spouse seeking maintenance; and

  (12) the efforts of the spouse seeking maintenance to pursue available
  employment counseling

Spousal Support Eligibility

Texas does not have "alimony", but refers to spousal support payments as "maintenance." Maintenance means an periodic payments for a maximum of three (3) years after dissolution of a marriage from the income of one spouse for the support of the other spouse. A court may order maintenance for a spouse, only if:
(1) The spouse from whom maintenance is requested was convicted of or received deferred    adjudication for a criminal offense and the offense occurred:
      (A) within two years before the date on which a suit for dissolution of the marriage is filed; or
      (B) while the suit is pending; or
(2) the duration of the marriage was 10 years or longer, the spouse seeking
  maintenance lacks sufficient property:
      (A) is unable to support himself or herself through appropriate employment
   because of an incapacitating physical or mental disability;
      (B) is the custodian of a child who requires substantial care and personal
   supervision because a physical or mental disability makes it necessary,
   taking into consideration the needs of the child, that the spouse not be
   employed outside the home; or
     (C) clearly lacks earning ability in the labor market adequate to provide
   support for the spouse's minimum reasonable needs.
An order for maintenance is not authorized between unmarried cohabitants under any circumstances.